January 16, 2005

• It’s taken three months to write this next chapter of my story. First I have to find all the letters, poems, photos, and other detritus that came from the five-year period involved, then scrapbook them in some kind of chronological order, then allow them to help me remember the events of so long ago. I hope I’ll have time to go back and add more detail but for now I must plow on before it’s too late….

  Chapter 8
  FLOWER CHILDREN
  (See sidebar for previous chapters)

  By July 1964, having left Paris behind, my mind cleared like an old painting found in a corner and dusted off. Enduring the hideous heat of a New York summer (for the fourth and last time in my life) in the little walk-up apartment in the East Village, I regained my health by force feeding into my face endless bananas, orange and V-8 juice, buttermilk, and bowls of wheat germ cereal laced with milk and raisins. Late that month my old friend from Indiana and her new husband came to town, and we rented a storefront together in the same neighborhood. Felix arrived from Europe in mid-August and decided to get his own apartment nearby. He got a job at an art gallery uptown and a scholarship to Brooklyn Museum Art School and told me he was no longer in love. I was sad, but the bond between us was not yet broken and I decided to stay on in New York, finding work that fall in an office in downtown Manhattan proofreading for a typing service for $75/week. (to be continued tomorrow)
  

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  Deep Thought: “It’s interesting to think that my ancestors used to live in the trees, like apes, until finally they got the nerve to head out onto the plains, where some were probably hit by cars.”
  Today I am grateful for: Electricity
  Guess the Movie: “A word of caution: dementors are vicious creatures. They will not distinguish between the one they hunt and the one who gets in their way. Therefore I must warn each and every one of you to give them no reason to harm you. It’s not in the nature of a dementor to be forgiving. But you know happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, when one only remembers to turn on the light.” Answer: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Winner: suzyQ_darnit.
  Tamer Protests Expected for Second Inauguration
  Some Plan to Turn their Backs on Bush, but Key Liberal and Antiwar Groups are Abstaining
  by Johanna Neuman
  WASHINGTON — Four years ago, thousands of protesters massed along the inaugural parade route to show their anger over the contested election in which President Bush gained his first term. Bearing signs such as “Hail to the Thief” and “Supreme Injustice,” they crowded the subways, got into sidewalk debates with inaugural guests and gave a historic day a heightened sense of democracy in action.
  This year, as George W. Bush is sworn in for a second term, the atmosphere promises to be calmer. (See rest of article here.)
  End of Day: 9:54 pm
  + = Having great fun watching the Golden Globes.
  - = Some of these people are so smarmy.

  • 10:06 am
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